Part 1 of a 6-part series for 14 Minutes of SaaS. Georg Petschnigg in conversation with Stephen Cummins. "It's funny because my childhood rebellion then actually ended up… you know, leaving that sort of entrepreneurial spirit of the household home and then joining a major American corporation. So I ended up joining Microsoft out of college then and starting my career there. And that was more like, yeah, that's …. my rebellion was working for the man!"

And, you know, the name, you know, is very much inspired from like working with industrial designers, but also like being familiar with the body. The length of average arms reaches Fifty Three centimetres. That’s the space between head, heart and blank canvas. It's in that circumference where, like, people do their best work. And we wanted to make sure that our tools, which are essential to us for creation, would fit into that space. That’s essentially where in one number, we essentially wrapped up, like mapped to the human body what we set out to with Fifty Three.

Why did Bas and the team actually build WeTransfer? Well because they wanted to get behind great ideas. Okay? That's why it exists. Right? It's not to send the file. It is to make a client happy … to get like your music out … to deliver the great video! That's why they got into this! It’s the same reasons why we got started with Fifty Three! We got into it because people have those ideas locked in your head, and you have to get them out. And that's sort of where we then, you know, start thinking about … well, what if it's not about just sending files? But it's really about the transfer of ideas. It's about the movement of ideas. We want to be the company that's behind every great idea.

Having a business that has a hybrid business model where you can counter and interact with your consumer … either with free or subscription. That's what makes it so powerful because you're actually … I think WeTransfer is one of the few companies that can dance with the big tech companies. But can do it authentically, because we don't we do not depend on their distribution.

Transcript: E105 – Georg Petschnigg – 5 of 6 – New and Old Amsterdam
Georg Petschnigg: Having a tool for great thinking – Paper. Having a great tool to see inspiration and hold onto it – Collect. Having a tool to show, you know, your work -Paste. Having a great tool to deliver your ideas – Transfer. Right. So, we have a tool for thinking, seeing, showing and delivering. These are sort of the pillars of the creative process.And that’s an incredibly exciting proposition, right? Because the world hasn’t…doesn’t understand that this exists yet. But it does. Like, we built it!
Stephen Cummins: Welcome to 14 minutes of SaaS! The show where you can listen to the stories and opinions of founders of the world’s most remarkable SaaS scale-ups!
This is the fifth and penultimate of a six-episode series recorded with Georg Petschnigg at the Web Summit in Lisbon. We find out how Fifty Three, although it built great tools, never shipped the manual to creativity until it joined up with WeTransfer – a company that better understood the power of content. We learn that hand-writing is not dead … and that in this world of selfies and personal branding, there’s still seemingly much more people in this world that care far more about creating for others. But we start with Georg’s perspective on how the landscape has, to a large extent … the physical landscape … shaped many of the core cultural characteristics of born and bred Amsterdammers. And why the city has evolved into a sophisticated, multilingual environment that champions pragmatism, openness, collaboration, and tolerance … And also why, with native and adopted New Yorkers, there’s a sense of grandiosity, energy, individual risk taking .. and a sense of infinite possibilities seems to be much more pervasive in that massive city.
Stephen Cummins: Do you feel there’s a connection there? When you talk about, for example, you know, the first stock exchange … and any of that model from, you know, ships … some more likely to come back, some with bigger, more valuable payload if they do come back et cetera. Basically the model for investment and venture, you know, …And then Wall Street in New York. And then the fact that, you know, Amsterdam is very open and so is New York by US standards, it’s very open, very liberal.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah.
Stephen Cummins: And also there’s something a little bit hard-nosed or direct about Amsterdammers and New Yorkers in some ways in the way they communicate…
Georg Petschnigg: The two big differences … It’s true, both cities are very… very open. Amsterdam is very open minded. And in New York, it’s also very open minded, also very direct. But they came out of a different origins. The origin in Amsterdam is, like … look, you know, the people have won the land, and they fought the water together. Right? So, and when you start looking around, you see the windmills and you see, like, you know … Amsterdam, that area exists because people fought the water together! So the tolerance and the frankness in people as a result … that they had to work together! That is, like, it by necessity.
Stephen Cummins: The Zuiderzee is just, like, incredible.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah. So, because if they don’t work together, the water is going to win, right? And everyone loses, right? So that is like actually sort of a really interesting, you know, cultural phenomenon. In New York, like, it was like, you know … there’s still the rest of the country, right? There’s so much space still in the United States. Like, if you pissed someone off, like, well, just travel West, right? There was a way out … in many ways. Like, so there is sort of, it’s a different. You know, I would say it’s, you know … there is a grandiosity about that!
Stephen Cummins: Yeah.
Georg Petschnigg: Right there is like ‘We’re gonna, you know, we’re the capital of the world!’ Right? There is sort of that… that like in many ways like, you know, the resources and the scale, and the infinite plains. Like, you know, there’s still so much more of America to find. Like when you’re like on the east coast right … and essentially, like, so there’s a certain directness and, you know, the pioneers … They would make their way to the West Coast. So, there’s just so much more space. You don’t have to agree with people in the US, right? You can just pack up and keep going, right? And that is something like. Oh god there are so many differences, like … you know, bicycles everywhere versus screeching subways, right?
Stephen Cummins: Massive. Yeah. Yeah,
Georg Petschnigg: But that is also again like … the quality of life in Amsterdam is remarkable, right? And I think, you know, you end up making, I think … it does impact also like sort of … when you look at a lot of, like… you know … in the US, there’s been a huge push on growth at all costs. Again, that speaks, I think maybe partially to the grandiosity. What I’ve noticed is like, you know, there is more of a measured-ness in the Netherlands to this in terms of the approach, right? Privacy plays a huge role, right? You know, just you know, growing responsibly. Like even having that type of discussion, right? Something that just wouldn’t necessarily occur in the United States. It does happen in the Netherlands.
Stephen Cummins: It’s interesting because you … culturally, personally … and I’m sure you enjoy the great things about the great city of New York … you seem culturally more in tune with the Netherlands, because you would think in a sustainable way, I think. You do think about growth, but you think about it … you don’t think about it at all costs. You’re not really about the money.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah.
Stephen Cummins: I know that’s a cliché …. and all entrepreneurs wanna say that. But you’re actually not really about the money. You’re pretty confident that comes along anyway if you introduce value into the world. But you are very much about doing something meaningful. And doing something long-term and sustainable. You’re not building this to spike and jump off at some point. Is that a …
Georg Petschnigg: No. No. That’s correct. I mean, again, like going back to the beginning of our interview … like, I grew up in preserving an historic castle. Right.
Stephen Cummins: Okay.
Georg Petschnigg: It’s, like, that seems like a completely reasonable thing to do, right? Whereas, you know, the American response would have been just tear it down and build a casino, right? I don’t know, I may be over simplifying here but …
Stephen Cummins: Of course.
Georg Petschnigg: …. There’s like you know … this trade off between preserving and tradition and… holding onto the collective … versus like forging out, conquering the frontier and doing the new, right?
Stephen Cummins: What is it? The Joni Mitchell song about paradise and they put up a parking lot? Just that pragmatism. Well, not that the Dutch were not pragmatic either. But it was business first, I guess.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah,
Stephen Cummins: Business first in New York, yeah.
Georg Petschnigg: yeah. So that’s like … I have to admit there is no greater feeling than standing up at the right frontier with the right group of people and taking that first step, right?
Stephen Cummins: Fantastic.
Georg Petschnigg: There is no greater feeling than that …. But you know, then… then what does it mean? Like when you’re there, and you make your discovery … it’s like build something that lasts!
Stephen Cummins: What’s your vision for where WeTransfer gets to? Now that Fifty Three is, you know, has worked its way through, or is working its way through, that complex integration. Where would you see yourself in a few years time? Where would you like to be?
Georg Petschnigg: We are right now in a very critical and exciting phase which is like, you know, launching and getting out this. Our set of tools, you know …
Having a tool for great thinking – Paper. Having a great tool to see inspiration and hold onto it – Collect. Having a tool to show, you know, your work -Paste. Having a great tool to deliver your ideas – Transfer. Right. So, we have a tool for thinking, seeing, showing and delivering. These are sort of the pillars of the creative process. So we want to… to really launch and bring into the market that set of tools. And we needed to let, you know, the world know that actually there is now… a set of tools for your innovation, for your invention, for your creativity. You don’t just have to make documents. You don’t just have to make like, you know, photoshop files, right? Actually, everyone … meaning everyone from individuals to your enterprise, right, can be creative. And you have now a set of tools for that, right?
And that’s an incredibly exciting proposition, right? Because the world hasn’t…doesn’t understand that this exists yet. But it does. Like, we’ve built it! And we need to now get it out, right? And that’s sort of like essentially with, you know, what the team is going to be focused on for the next one to two years. Right.
Stephen Cummins: And would that be part of your role?
Georg Petschnigg: That is my job, right? To verbalize, like, where essentially our new products are headed. So there’s the transfer product and then we have our additional products. Where those are headed is part of my job, but then of course, like I work with, you know … the CMO on the marketing side, I work with, you know, my counters on the transfer team … or work like on our core technology team … our service team. I mean, look, you know, we have an executive team. They are more people working on WeTransfer.
Stephen Cummins: Of course.
Georg Petschnigg: But launching that. And getting that, you know, into the world now is essentially what we’re focused on. So what I hope is that in like, in two to three years from now … what that really means is that, you know, that, we hear the phrase, “Like I’m not creative” less and less and less.
Stephen Cummins: Because people are all creative to some degree. They’re not equally creative … because just kind of you know … but, they all have a certain level of creativity. To be creative is to be … is part of what it is to be human.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah. WeTransfer has, like, this great “editorial and content” team … where like, we’ve never done “editorial and content”. Like, what does this mean to us? So we ended up building, inside of the Paper, the Paper store. Which is essentially a collection of creative prompts and creative journals and it … essentially is this little world that …
Stephen Cummins: You’ve created a marketplace?
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah.
Stephen Cummins: Really?
Georg Petschnigg: It’s not a market … I mean, it’s not … it’s more of a store front of little journals and creative exercises. So you can learn everything from doing better handwriting, to drawing portraits, to mind-maps, to… there are visual drawing meditation exercises. But it’s essentially a single place where you can get started with your creativity.
Stephen Cummins: And these are third parties building them on your tools?
Georg Petschnigg: No. No. We commissioned. We did them in-house. And so, I mean, we’ve been working with so many different, you know… you know, designers and educators and artists in the world. So it was actually … so the first 25 journals that we launched, we essentially either did them ourselves or commissioned them with our audience, our customers. But the crazy thing is….
Stephen Cummins: So, like, ecosystem is everything for you right now?
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah but the remarkable thing is like … so we’ve been running like Paper for seven years. But I only realize now that we never shipped the manual, right, to “Creativity.” You know, people would come to Paper and be like, “Listen, you know, I sort of, know like I’m excited about drawing … and I’m stimulated by the blank page. The much bigger market is people who don’t know how to draw and just need a place to start! So it is one of those things where we, like, now with the launch of the Paper Store, just saw quite a dramatic change in how people are using a product, and taking up the product. Because now…
Stephen Cummins: And you can see the change? You’ve been able to measure it?
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Stephen Cummins: How long ago did you launch it?
Georg Petschnigg: We launched .. I think it’s three weeks ago, but it’s very clear like in terms of metrics.
Stephen Cummins: In three weeks, you’re seeing a dramatic…
Georg Petschnigg: Oh yeah.
Stephen Cummins: Wow. And the response. You seeing people just wanted it. You could feel that! It’s like a product market extension fit moment or something…
Georg Petschnigg: It is an extension. Our conversion to a subscription doubled!
Stephen Cummins: Wow!
Georg Petschnigg: And again, it makes sense..
Stephen Cummins: That’s huge.
Georg Petschnigg: …Because we… That’s what I mean … we were sort of shipping the missing manual, right? But it’s like the manual people were all looking for. For how to really unlock your creativity, right? And now it’s there.. and it’s beautiful! And it’s such a funny thing. Like, we didn’t know we would learn about content joining up with WeTransfer. And we did. And we sort of wanted to do it too.
Stephen Cummins: You thought it might be the other way, maybe.
Georg Petschnigg: We’re like … you know what let’s do this content thing too. You know, and so, you know, Chris and Max and Allan, like, the team, like, they just like they just ran with it. And it’s a beautiful place. Again, it’s just early. But even in that early … when you’re looking at what are the top downloaded journals. One is around… the top one is about handwriting!
Stephen Cummins: Are you serious? How counter-intuitive that is to my mind?
Georg Petschnigg: The second one is about drawing portraits. Not selfies. Portraits!
Stephen Cummins: That doesn’t surprise me as much. Okay.
Georg Petschnigg: Right. And the third one isn’t about diagrams, okay?
Stephen Cummins: That doesn’t surprise me too much either, but the first one really surprised me.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah.
Stephen Cummins: But that’s validation that we still love to wield tools.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah! But it’s also like, you know, people want a quiet place to think. They want to create for others. You know, they want to be able to read their ideas. That can show them to others. That’s where handwriting is important, right? And that’s like … we didn’t know, like, where would people go? What would they gravitate to? But if I just, like, line up great handwriting, you know, drawing, creating a portrait of someone else and diagramming, expressing your thoughts. That this is where people go, right? I mean, it just shows that humans are just great creators.
Stephen Cummins: What an insight as well. To be able to even get that stack rank. To even know that, yeah, coz that informs your future designs. That informs where you’re going on so many levels. And I wonder how many people ….. there’s some great minds there … you know we’re looking at the forum (in the Web Summit in Lisbon) which is where the speakers are. It’s all founders and, but I don’t think any of them would have guessed that if you’d put up 10. Well, if you put up 10 options of course, somebody would. But I don’t think anybody would intuitively feel that would have been the number one.
Georg Petschnigg: No.
Stephen Cummins: Because we’ve forgotten. There’s something beautiful about that .. you know facilitating that relationship. But in a way that also integrates with the digital ages. That allows us to transfer things, to share things. To collect things as you said. And then to put something else on top of that and… and to express ourselves in a way that we can best express ourselves. There must be research around that?
Georg Petschnigg: There is. There’s a lot of research on it. Like the simple thing is, like, you know, I mean you can go all the way back to the development actually of the typewriter. And the development of the typewriter in part was developed for the typist office, right, where people then stopped writing by hand. And you had then a secretary type stuff for you, right? Yes, it was more efficient. You were able to send out more communications, right? But it was a step back in terms of what would feel like a personal communication. You know, having like something typed up in courrier typeface, signed at the end. Like the signature became the substitute for sort of this whole thing was written by hand but, you know … something was lost.
Stephen Cummins: In the next episode, 106 of 14 Minutes of SaaS, the final instalment in our series of 6 with Georg Petschnigg, we hear about the immense influence dance has had on so much of what he does. And as is the traditional with all guests on this show, he has some great advice for entrepreneurs
Stephen Cummins: You’ve been listening to 14 minutes of SaaS. Thanks to Mike Quill for his creativity and problem solving skills, and to Ketsu for the music. Thanks also to Anders Getz for the transcript. This episode was brought to you by me, Stephen Cummins. If you enjoyed the podcast, please don’t forget to share it with your network, subscribe to the series, and give the show a rating.
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Transcript: E106 – Georg Petschnigg – 6 of 6 – Perpetually Meaningful Movement
Georg Petschnigg: Start with the team. Like, if you …. just really start with the team. Because like, who knows? …. Entrepreneurship and venture … where are things gonna go? Like, you want to be with people you like .. that you learn from, right? Because there will be highs, there will be lows. And there might not even be light at the end of the tunnel. But you will enjoy the journey if you enjoy the people that you’re with. So it’s like you’re already a winner no matter what happens if, you know, if you have the right team. And then, you know, of course, have a great idea, and have the skills and all of this too … but always start with the team. It’s also one of those things when people ask me like advice around how do I get investors? “I need investment so I can hire the team.” And I was like, “You’ve got it wrong. You get the team. And then the investors will give you money.”
Stephen Cummins: Welcome to 14 minutes of SaaS! The show where you can listen to the stories and opinions of founders of the world’s most remarkable SaaS scale-ups!
Stephen Cummins: Welcome to episode 106 of 14 Minutes of SaaS, the final instalment of a series of 6 with Georg Petschnigg. We learn about the immense influence of dance, and seeing falling as a source of momentum, on so much of what he does. We also hear moleskin notebooks described as books waiting to be written. He may be an entrepreneur in the land of digital, but Georg derives his inspiration from the real world. As a result, waxing lyrical on analog experience is never too far away from the conversation. Georg also deconstructs his defining characteristics and motivations, and offers some sage advice for other adventurous entrepreneurs out there.
Georg Petschnigg:
The reason, like, Moleskin was so successful, right? Maria Sebregondi, when she created that brand … she recognized that at that time she would talk about the digital nomads, right? That with the rise of technology, people are just valuing that quiet space to think and they place a premium on… you know, they place a premium on their time, on their thinking time, right? And that’s so … if your paper is three dollars or nineteen dollars, right … I mean, for a certain type of worker, the time is the limiting factors, right? And you know … and then she also is quite genius in terms of positioning where she would say like, “This is not a Moleskin , it’s a book that has yet to be written.” Right. “It’s not paper, it’s a book that has to be written.”
Stephen Cummins: That’s beautiful.
Georg Petschnigg: It’s ingenious. But the Italians are ingenious in that way.
Stephen Cummins: Yeah.
Georg Petschnigg: But that was like sort of the, you know, that was actually a huge impetus. Like, seeing sort of the rise of Moleskin… in terms of like .. “What is Moleskin doing that like technology is not?” And actually that led to then many answers … we’re like, “Hang on. We didn’t design actually for creativity.” Creativity has different demands. It has demands for thinking, for seeing … for, you know, showing, for delivering. Not, like, how quickly can I get from A to B.
Stephen Cummins: And when did you build Collect? … When did that happen?
Georg Petschnigg: So that was under… that was very much under development and then had just shipped shortly before we then joined through the acquisition. And then most recently we then actually added then the subscription component in. The SaaS component to Collect as well. So Collect is about, like, you know … there’s an increase of, you know, just the vastness of information that we encounter today. It has, of course, dramatically increased . But also the shapes and forms in which you encounter information; could be a tweet, a podcast, a collection of files, a link and Collect is this. You know, super powerful shoe box in which you can collect any type of inspiration that you see. You can organise that, and then make more use of it. So it’s been dubbed the introvert version of Pinterest.
Stephen Cummins: I actually thought of Pinterest when you said it.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah, yeah. So. But, you know, where Pinterest is like a great social discovery tool.
Stephen Cummins: Yeah.
Georg Petschnigg: Like, you know, Collect is sort of that quiet place where you get to gather like the stuff that’s … and then reuse and repurpose the digital files and assets in your workflow then, right? So Collect sort of sits between Paper, and connects them to Paste. And connects them to other workflows, right? So that’s sort where Collect is.
Stephen Cummins: Now, for any listeners who can’t see Georg right now, because I have this thing about audio to the world … Georg is a very fluid mover, and when he’s speaking to me, he’s at his most comfortable. When he’s expressing himself with his hands, his shoulders, his torso, his face, everything. You are almost at rest when you move.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah.
Stephen Cummins: And I sometimes wonder, you know, you’re about being behind the movement of ideas. How connected are they? And I do know that you love the art of dance …
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah.
Stephen Cummins: Could you tell us a little bit about the influence that it’s had in your life, and how it continues to influence your life?
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah, there’s so, my gosh …. there’s well …
First one. As you’re talking about the movement of ideas, what I really like to think about now is like ‘How does each …What is the spin … What is each movement that each product enables, right? And that’s sort of like … these are like gestures! And how do they connect, right? So there is actually that movement piece.
I started dancing during my college years because I, you know, used to play a lot of music. And I knew my dorm mates would not appreciate me practicing the trumpet for two to three hours everyday. So I still wanted that connection. And thats sort of like where dance came into play. And you know, I didn’t quite know what to get from it. It was one of those things where it’s like, you know, karate, martial arts, is too aggressive. I didn’t want to do that anymore. Yoga … that wasn’t quite … that was too far … the yoga piece was too far from my culture at that time.
And then I learned about Martha Graham who had essentially incorporated every … like she’s actually studied a lot of her movements, and took like a lot of inspiration from, you know … from the martial arts, from yoga, from, of course the repertoire of dance at that time. And actually translated that into a technique. And so that’s what I ended up studying for about seven years. But in dance you spend a lot of time actually working with a feeling of falling, right? Or building up momentum. And, you know, progressively through your practice, as you’re moving and re-moving, it is actually this. You really start learning that this feeling of falling is very similar to building up momentum to reach that next level, right? And sometimes many moves or movements in dance, like, require that momentum to reach there. And at some moment like my mind really … something in my mind clicked … where I then became very comfortable with the ambiguity of “Are you falling or are you just building up momentum?”
You start realising that they’re actually the same, right? It is the same. And once you allow for that, you realise that, you know, your capacity of sit or deal with that ambiguity … it becomes, actually, a tremendous creative act. Because you then … you like one, you know, you actually realize that before you truly fall, there is usually a long distance to go. And even if you do fall, like, there’s usually, you know, other dancers around that, that you know will lend a hand. You know. And that in the end has like served me in the most unexpected ways in my life. The first one is about, you know, as you would grow and rise through a career, like, you have to do a lot of speaking and public speaking. Which in itself is sometimes a terrifying experience. But actually doing a dance performance in front of, like, a bunch of dancers that dance much better than you – and you’re out there making fool of yourself is a great for having to do public speaking later on.
But also you very quickly then realise that that feeling of unease, of discomfort. Standing at a podium or wherever … is again just that feeling of falling. Or, you know, you’re entering a dance with the audience, right? And you start feeling like the ground shift, right? As you’re speaking. And it becomes like you know, more of a ritual or movement. You start being able to … another one of those things as the dancer … you can actually breathe through your lungs like through contractions. You actually can make yourself breathe. It’s really .. that’s a very Martha Graham type thing. She really would work with like contractions and releases, right? But why is this really important? Because if you have to steady your breath, right? I can lower my pulse by just physical body movement that will change my breath, and calm the body back down, right? So it is so connected to …
Stephen Cummins: When I used to time-trial on a bike, I could just think… I could just with my mind sit down ans lower my pulse. I always remember that.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah!
Stephen Cummins: But what you’re talking about is another level altogether.
Georg Petschnigg: Well no … it’s like … if you have sort of a repertoire movement … I’m sure with yoga meditations its a very similar thing. You put your body into a certain position and then your body remembers, right? The physiology, then controls the psychology. Right. That’s how this works. Physiology. How does the body feel? And then the mind recognizes how the body is feeling. Right. So this is, I mean … in theater, people know that very well. Dancers of course know that really well. And so that was like a really huge learning.
And then the other thing is actually … I then ended up in dance class out on the West Coast, ended up finding like my… just also wondering about a serendipitous connection … but I ended up finding, like, you know, Professor Faste [Rolf Arne Faste]. My design professor. Like he was there because he was constantly trying to expand different modes of thinking. So that’s why it was in a dance class. And, you know, I remember him, like, introducing himself, you know, with … This was a funny silly exercise in dance class, but you essentially had to dance your way as an introduction. So that assignment was like, you know, dance to introduce yourself.
And what he ended up doing is actually dancing … he was a very funny man … he looked like Papa Smurf with a big white beard. He started moving like, somewhat like a quirky robot, but he was spelling out his name like a plotter or spelling out the letters R-O-L-F. And when I saw that I just burst out laughing because it was just so funny. And yeah, we got into a conversation and I told him what I was doing. And then he told me like “I think what you’re doing is design.” And I was like, “I have no idea what this is.” And so, you know, then he basically told me like, “No, no, I mean, it’s stuff that you’ve been doing on the software side. And what you’ve been building and engineering, it’s actually all design. You should learn more about it”.
And, you know, that also then drastically changed my trajectory … because I then sort of learned more about the design process. And then also started realizing that design is something… or design and creativity … There is a process. It can be taught. And as a result, we can get better at it. And everyone can learn it. And that also was then a really big source of inspiration for the rest of my career.
Stephen Cummins: Yeah, before we bring it to a close, could I just ask you two questions? 1. What do you think are the one or two essential qualities … you’re quite self aware and probably touched on them … has allowed you to kind of continuously succeed in your career? And the other question really would be around, you know, what would you always say to an entrepreneur if an entrepreneur came to you? Like one or two things you’d say … just things that you feel will somebody should bring with them when they start up a business?
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah, I think for the entrepreneur, I mean, the main advice for people starting out is like start with the team. Like, if you …. just really start with the team. Because like, who knows? …. Entrepreneurship and venture … where are things gonna go? Like, you want to be with people you like .. that you learn from, right? Because there will be highs, there will be lows. And there might not even be light at the end of the tunnel. But you will enjoy the journey if you enjoy the people that you’re with. So it’s like you’re already a winner no matter what happens if, you know, if you have the right team. And then, you know, of course, have a great idea, and have the skills and all of this too … but always start with the team. It’s also one of those things when people ask me like advice around how do I get investors? “I need investment so I can hire the team.” And I was like, “You’ve got it wrong. You get the team. And then the investors will give you money.”
Like, if you, like, just really start with the team; because like, you know, you, who knows entrepreneurship and venture where things are gonna go. Like, you want to be with people like you like, that you learn from, right? Because like, you know, there will be highs, there will be lows, you know, and there might not even be light at the end of the tunnel, right? But you will enjoy the journey of, you enjoy the people that you’re with, right? So it’s like you’re already a winner no matter what happens if, you know, if you have the right team. And then, you know, of course, have a great idea and have the skills and all of this to but always start with the team. It’s also one of those things and people ask me like advice around like how do I get investors? And how do, you know, I need investment so I can hire a team. And I was, like. you’ve got it wrong. You get the team and then the investors will give you money. And give them the shares, right? I mean, that’s sort of like … that’s sort of the nice thing, right? It’s like… you know, it’s so that’s like … these are the things. Start with the team. And then the other question was about the…
Stephen Cummins: An inner quality that you besides, I mean, they’re many. But for, you … when you think about, you know, what’s helped carry you kinda from one thing to the next successfully. Yeah. What inner quality … ?
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah. So I think… this is so… I struggle with the idea of success … but I get what you’re saying… What has sort of fueled me and energized me? I hope it’s never gonna leave. But there’s this… there’s a huge curiosity and enthusiasm for what I do. And I don’t know why. Like I sometimes really feel like I haven’t advanced from my childhood.
Stephen Cummins: You know, you’ve always got this curiosity and you’ve always got this desire you, and you’ve got this love of what you do. But you’re also questioning… you’re also questioning …It’s like there’s almost a part of you that questioning whether that will always be there. Like, it’s like rediscovered every morning.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah. No, I mean, it is like, I wonder why it is there, but in many ways like … I don’t know how much of it … it’s just innate in me? … Or I was able to always transform whatever I’m working on into something that seemed exciting… to me. And it turns out actually often times also it’s exciting for others, right? I mean … that’s one of the things that like “I enjoyed working with Georg, because these are always interesting projects”. And I think that’s the ultimate maybe… maybe it’s that. I always had the good fortune that I get to work on problems and questions that are really meaningful, you know, to me … and also to others. And a wise person said you can always, like, judge the quality of your life based on the quality of questions you get to solve. And if you can work on the type of questions that you really care about, you know, you do have a great life?
Stephen Cummins: Georg. It’s great to hear so much focus on bringing value into the world. And doing it with people you enjoy being with, and care about. Thanks a million for being on 14 Minutes of Saas.
Georg Petschnigg: Thank you.
Stephen Cummins:
For episode 107 of 14 Minutes of SaaS we will stay in the Web Summit in Lisbon, where I interviewed Ilan Twig, CTO and Cofounder of Tripactions, a corporate travel management company. Covid19 is obviously a major challenge to SaaS companies in that industry, but at the time of recording a few months ago, it was the fastest growing software company in history. And had just been valued at 4 billion USD after just 4 years in existence.
Stephen Cummins: You’ve been listening to 14 minutes of SaaS. Thanks to Mike Quill for his creativity and problem solving skills, to Ketsu for the music and to Anders Getz for the transcript. This episode was brought to you by me, Stephen Cummins. If you enjoyed the podcast, please don’t forget to share it with your network, subscribe to the series, and give the show a rating
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